Ozian Adventures: The Land
by wickedmetalviking1990
Summary: Part Seven of the Ozian Adventures series. Maaptia is a wild continent east of Nonestica. Have the old foes followed our four brave adventurers here, or will they be able to carve out a future of their own? Rated T, Fiyeraba, Bessa, OC/Glinda
1. The Story So Far

**(AN: A quick, or not so quick, re-capitulation of things that have happened in the past _six_ adventures [though I suggest you go back and re-read those, starting with LittleGreenFae's _Another World Another War_]. This one is going to be another original story, going where no man has ever gone before and beyond that!)**

**(So prepare yourselves, for _The Land_ has begun! [all _Lord of the Rings_ references belong to Tolkien, not me])**

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><p><strong>The Story So Far<strong>

Four figures moved through the Great Dark Beyond, the Ether, the Void between the worlds. Though they knew it not, time and space moved about them faster than the blink of an eye. To these four, however, it all seemed as though the space of a dream.

The man, Fiyero Tiggular, saw himself waking up anew once again. He was made of hay and straw, with a burlap sack for a face, gloves for hands and an old green shirt upon his body. Had the spell worked? He had felt some kind of magic, yet he knew not if that was the natural way of death or if something had saved him?

Half in his mind came the echo of a spell being chanted in the distance.

_Yes_, he thought. _It was her! She saved me!_

_But why am I thinking?_

His mind went blank, and he just stood there, pretending not to notice what was going on around him until the little girl appeared. She helped him down from the pole - where the Gale Force had put him when he was still human - and in return, he offered to follow with her to the Emerald City to see the Wizard. He made up some story about him not having any brains as a reason to go with her. She even suggested that he go and ask the Wizard for brains.

As if. He had been behind the Giant Head and knew the truth about the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

On their way he met a woodsman made out of tin - whom he recognized as none other than Boq, that Munchkin-lad who was always chasing after Glinda. Then there was the Lion, another creature he recognized. As a wee cub, he had been rescued by her.

Her. Elphaba Thropp, the Wicked Witch of the West, the woman he loved. He had only seen her once since they parted that moment in Center Munch after he rescued her: she was on top of the cabin outside of which they had found the Tin Woodsman. She looked as though she had lost everything, and it had finally pushed her over the edge...

Into madness.

She lashed out at him with her magic. What had become of her, he wondered? Did she not know that he was alive? That he was there, living and breathing? The Elphaba Thropp he knew was many things, but wicked was hardly one of them. Something must have happened, and he needed to tell her that he was still alive.

But he never got the chance. Not yet, at least. Not while they were on the Yellow Brick Road, or when they finally reached the Emerald City. It wasn't until after they had exited the city and stopped at a nearby village that he had any chance of being by himself.

Then he remembered something, something that he was mentally slapping himself for forgetting. He had come there by accident as a child, playing around in the tunnels, but he never gave much thought to it until now. A great shimmering door-way, and the rock he threw into it didn't come back. It seemed like a long-shot, but he just had to do it. It might just work...

So, while Boq was riling up the villagers into a murderous frenzy, he nabbed some parchment, a quill and an ink-horn and scrawled this note:

_Dearest Elphaba,_

_Miraculously, I've managed to escape, thanks to the spell you've cast on me. I've had to pay a great price, but my love is still strong for you. I only hope that you will still want me when next we meet._

_I have a plan for us and I will come to you and explain it._

_Tell No One I still am_ ALIVE! _My only hope_ - OUR ONLY HOPE IS FOR ALL OZ TO THINK I'M DEAD.

A plan? Hardly. Not a thoroughly thought-out plan, at least. He wasn't that kind of person, one to take stock of what he had, plan for ages and ages before making a move. The phrase 'shoot first ask questions later' rang truer for him than any of the old sayings of wisdom and patience.

But it was worth a try. If they were found out, they would both be killed. So he stuffed the letter into the straw in his body. They had nothing to lose by attempting this.

In the end, it was a little trickier than he had expected. Near the forest at the foot of the Vinkus River they were attacked by Flying Monkeys. He didn't know who they belonged to, though he thought he saw some of them in the woods when he and Elphaba...

The Monkeys tore him apart, one of them found the letter and took it away. He didn't know if they were allies or her enemies, or if the letter would even get to her now. He was even more fearful once, after being put back together and attacking Kiamo Ko, she threatened him again with fire.

In the end, it was all a ploy. The water had been carefully placed there, she just needed to 'convince' one of them to throw it, and though it was a close-call, she 'melted' quite convincingly and they returned to the Emerald City as heroes.

The little girl left and then Fiyero returned to Kiamo Ko in search of the green woman. She was still alive, and he told her about the tunnel and the shimmering door-way. She didn't really believe him, but it was worth a try, she said so herself. Together, hand in hand, they walked through the Clock of the Time Dragon...

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><p>The woman, the green woman, Elphaba Thropp, had been everyone's enemy. Those annoying little hobbits were startled by her verdigris, and though the Elves cared not, the Men of Rohan and Gondor were not as accepting. They almost feared her, as if she were some mysterious Elf as well. Yet she followed in the foot-steps of the Fellowship and soon found herself thrust into a new war.<p>

Fiyero was her love, and with him at her side, they had endured the first battle and made love at the victory celebration afterwards. Then the greatest battle came, and she found herself under the sway of the Enemy. She had first heard the voice of the Ring in Imladris, but now it spoke again, urging her to save it. It knew where the Bearer was taking it, and it called out to her to find it and take it up as her own, then all that she had desired would be hers, all the power to make good as she saw fit.

After the Battle of Pelennor Fields, she had become weakened and fatigued and the voice was now stronger. She gave in, sent the horse on its way and walked off into the Darkness. When her own will overcame that voice, she was then captured by the Enemy and spared from his downfall by a stroke of luck.

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><p>The other woman, Glinda the Good, was the loved one, the pretty one, the popular one. Yet with each bright light there is a shadow, and she had walked in hers for a good long time of her youth. Then she met the green woman and she began to break free from the control of the shadow. While the green woman was being led into the Darkness, she and Fiyero braved all to save her from that evil place. The light within her grew strong, and when she learned that Fiyero and Elphaba were to have a child, her joy was compounded.<p>

Yet her sorrow grew, for she was once again bereft of her own desire. Then the shadow took form again within her, and when they left that world and entered the world of Man, the darkness at last came forth. They were led away by a one-eyed old man, while she used the Book that they had left behind to split herself into four. Where they went after that only haunted her visions while she delved into the shadow as the servant of Queen Grimhild.

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><p>The last woman, the horse, Nessarose Thropp, was once a human. She had died as a victim of a house falling upon her, but returned to life as a horse in the land of Arda. Elphaba, her sister, saved the horse and though she could not speak to her sister, she joined herself to her as her trusty steed. Only when she went into the Darkness was she forced to leave her. Yet beyond hope they were reunited.<p>

She had followed with un-speaking eyes through all their travels, from Arda to Midgard and to the Oz of the past. It was there that she saw the Ancient Nameless Foe come to power and use that power to kill Glinda and bring her back to her true form.

Yet Glinda was not dead, for when they - Fiyero, Elphaba and Nessarose - returned to Midgard, the land of Men, they found her alive, though not entirely well. The shadow was now claiming her and she had not the desire to fight it. But they passed through the Crucible, one by one, and they all came through stronger and ready for the world.

One secret more was unlocked, they were now a bit closer to the meaning...

Then at last their eyes opened upon a strange new world.

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><p><strong>(AN: What world have they landed upon?)<strong>

**(Be prepared, for great adventures [hopefully] await. Faces old and new shall appear and the future of the _Ozian Adventures_ saga shall be decided!)  
><strong>


	2. Human Again

**(AN: Though _Trials of Boq and Nessa_ exists in a musical-verse of _Wicked_ that is separate from the musical-verse of _Wicked_ that _Ozian Adventures_ belongs to, the events depicted in that story, as far as pertaining to a certain character, are mentioned herein and have some weight on the events to come. If you know not, just go back and read. That's what it's there for)**

**(Hopefully this story will turn out better than the last six)**

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><p><strong>Human Again<strong>

He was now the Tin Woodsman, soon to be crowned Emperor of the West. In the whoop-dee-doo that followed the unexpected departure of the Wizard, the Scarecrow was left in charge of Oz. Though secretly, he who was once called Boq doubted that the straw-man seated upon the Emerald Throne was indeed the Scarecrow that he knew. Glinda had all the power as the Protector and Sorceress of Oz.

But then again, he could never be certain of anything. He had been certain that killing the Wicked Witch would be just retribution for his galvanization. Yet when she melted, he did not feel a bit whole than he had before when she was still alive. He received an audience with Glinda to tell her about what had happened and how he once felt for her.

It would make no difference. He could not be un-galvanized, so the chance of ever being with her was nonexistent. Then she told him the truth, that she never loved him, that he meant nothing to her and that she had only used him to get his attentions away from her.

Any other day, he would have been heart-broken. Yet he realized, even then, that she had done to him what he had done to another love-stricken person many weeks ago.

Nessarose Thropp.

In the end, he realized, she was the only one who ever truly understood him. And he drove her away, he threatened her, he left her, and then she hurt him. Glinda said it was her fault, though Boq didn't honestly believe a word of it.

At least, not yet.

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><p>So time went on and he tried to forget the past and move on with the future. Glinda was now ruling from Quadling, living in a remote palace that floated upon the marshes. She was still the same bubbly but kind sorceress, though a little absent-minded at times. She also had taken to dying her hair a brilliant shade of red, which Boq never would have seen coming at three hundred feet away with a brass ensemble heralding its arrival.<p>

He was living it up, more or less, in the Vinkus. A huge palace of tin he had commissioned to be constructed on the edge of the Thousand Year Grassland. Here he would rule over all the tribes of the Vinkus - the Scrow, the Yunamata and the Arjiki. It was a bold expansionist ploy, and if it worked, it would mean the quick civilization of the wild outback as part of Loyal Oz.

If it didn't, well, that would leave Oz one Tin Man short.

So it was that, while work continued on the palace, Boq decided to take a stroll. He thought his joints were getting a bit rusty and needed to make sure. As much as he enjoyed his shiny new body, it had many weak points. For instance, he seemed physically older than he was before, especially when his joints because rusty and hard to manage.

_Oh_, he sighed. _What I wouldn't give to be a normal Munchkin again!_

Just then, he noticed a figure standing upon the hill-side before him. It was cloaked and hooded, with a tall staff in its hand.

"Hello there!" he waved. "Who are you? What brings you to my castle?"

But the figure said nothing, it just walked on down the hill and was now coming close towards Boq. Fearing that this might be some kind of trick, he drew out his ax and prepared to stand his ground.

"Stay there!" he whined. "I mean it! I have an ax, I'm not afraid to use it!"

"Today is your lucky day, Boq!" the one-eyed old man said.

Before Boq could mutter _How do you know my name?_, a strange thing happened to him. Suddenly it seemed as though he was flying, flying _out_ of the tin body. It was standing still in place, ax in hand. Looking down at himself, he saw that he was once again as he had been - that is to say, flesh and bone. The old man was now whispering things to the tin statue.

"Why are _you_ still here?" he asked, looking up at the floating Munchkin. He waved his staff and suddenly Boq was soaring through the sky.

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><p><strong>(AN: A very short chapter, but I can think of nothing else to put there.)<strong>

**(More things will happen in the next chapter)**


	3. A New Land

**(AN: -sigh- I have a lot of work cut out for me. Just when I thought the world of _Wicked_ had changed, I get verbally assaulted by the Chenzel fan-girls who insist that Idina Menzel is the best and all others suck because they're not her [which pretty much is a big f-you to all of my favorite actresses and all the other amazing ones out there...and you say _I'm_ being mean])**

**(So yeah, in between being angry at them, the loss [once again] of internet and inspiration, I'm surprised this chapter will even get out all-together.)**

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><p><strong>A New Land<strong>

When four pairs of eyes finally opened, they found themselves in the middle of the desert. Not the Deadly Desert, for, according to legend, any who set foot upon it would turn to sand. In fact, Elphaba was the first one to fear this as she screamed upon seeing the sand and then started writhing fiercely, as if trying to get the acidic sand off her.

"Elphaba, calm down!" Nessa assured her.

But they were all looking at the sand in wonder, except, perhaps, Fiyero.

"I knew it was all a lie," Elphaba sneered, getting back to her feet.

"You sure acted like it was for real," Glinda returned.

"Shut up, Glinda!"

"Oh, that's real smooth, Elphaba!" Glinda began. "I mean, it's not like I haven't been through enough already, trying to get away from that evil queen, and the best you have to say to me is 'Shut up, Glinda'?"

"Hey, she didn't mean it like that!" Fiyero interjected. "I mean, we're tired. We're probably all on edge."

"I'm not," Glinda stated.

"Well, you would be if you almost died!" Elphaba shouted. It took both Fiyero and Nessa to keep her from striking out at Glinda. She struggled against them, but they were not willing to let any more fights start. They had already been through hell in Midgard, and now they were all well beyond weary.

Then Liir, their almost-forgotten fifth member started crying. Elphaba took a step forward, then collapsed face-first into the sand. Glinda got down on her knees and tried to revive Elphaba, while Nessa removed Liir from the basket on Fiyero's back and tried to calm him down.

* * *

><p>Here they would rest, since it seemed that they would not be going anywhere any time soon. Glinda and Fiyero both held Elphaba between them, while Nessa was finally making some progress with the calming of baby Liir.<p>

"You'll make a good aunt," Fiyero said to her.

"He has a wonderful father," she replied, smiling at the man who was, more or less, her brother-in-law. At this, Fiyero blushed. He never thought of himself as the parental type, but now, it seemed, he was turning into something that, back when he first arrived at Shiz, he never would have imagined himself ever becoming.

"How's Elphaba?" she asked.

"I don't know," Fiyero replied. "We haven't eaten anything since I can't remember, so we're all on edge." He looked down at Elphaba, remembering what she said about almost dying. Her dress was torn at her stomach, and the cloth was stained with blood.

"Glinda, give me a hand here," Fiyero said, as he tried to remove the rest of Elphaba's clothing.

"Fiyero, what are you doing?"

"I need to see what's wrong with her," he returned. He didn't remove all of the clothes (not all of them), just made the tare a little bigger. Now he could clearly see what had happened. The wound was sealed up, with clotted scabs of red and green where the body was healing itself. But it was the tiny black spidery lines criss-crossing from the wound that concerned him.

"This can't be good," he said. He turned back to Glinda. "Hand me the staff."

"The staff? Why?"

"The old man said that she should hold it," Fiyero said. "It worked last time, it closed up the wound. It might be able to do something."

Glinda shrugged, then leaned over and picked up the staff. As she was about to pass it to Fiyero, she paused. The silver cap had drawn her attention, something she saw upon it that she thought she had seen before...

_Ahben..._

"Glinda!"

"Fiyero!" she exclaimed.

"What?"

"Look here!" she turned the staff over and showed him the silver cap. Upon the wood there were fine lines of white, so fine that they could not be seen up close. They looked like they belonged to the wood, but yet were not the color of wood that the rest of the broom bore.

"There's some writing on the cap," Fiyero said. "I can't read it. Give it here..."

"No! Those white lines! I knew I knew where this staff came from!"

"Glinda..."

"No, really. I think those white lines might be pieces from my old staff."

They both looked at her with quizzical expressions, as if she had just said that, because they could no longer see it, Oz did not exist anymore.

"What?" she queried. "Don't you remember?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Nessa admitted.

"I might," Fiyero mused. "But that got broken. Don't you remember? Those wicked men broke it when we were captured. I don't recall ever seeing much of it after that."

"I had one piece left," Glinda said. "I used it to save you, Fiyero. But then he saved Elphie."

"Wait, are you guys talking about Middle-Earth?" Nessa asked.

"Yes!" they both returned.

"How come I don't remember any of this?" she asked. "I remember going with you to Helm's Deep, I remember staying in a smelly stable with a bunch of other horses, then going out for the long trek back to Edoras, then riding out to war, then the battle..."

She paused. Even for a horse, the battle before the gates of the White City was something she did not wish to remember again.

"Then Elphaba let me go, and you two found me, then you let me go again."

"Well, that's it," Fiyero said. "We let you go before we went into Mordor, that's why you don't remember any of what happened after that."

"But how did they find this?" Glinda asked. "I mean, all those little pieces. I didn't expect to see it again."

"Well, technically, the old woman gave it to Elphaba, so it's hers."

"Huh? Oh, right." Glinda placed the staff in Elphaba's hands. As if by magic, she began breathing more steadily and her eyes opened.

"Fae, are you alright?"

She nodded her head.

"Where are we?"

"I was hoping you'd have the answer to that," Fiyero asked.

"Well, I don't," she returned, coming to a sitting position. "I must have blacked out between Midgard and waking up in sand."

"This doesn't look like the Deadly Desert," Fiyero said.

"How would you know?" Glinda asked.

"I saw it once," he said. "Back when I was a kid, me and some of my friends almost dared each other to walk out into it...then Father found us. It's too...living, here."

That was true. Trees that looked like overgrown shrubs dotted the landscape, with ridges of red-rock upon the horizon. The ground sure was arid enough to look like a desert - aside from the trees, not a bit of greenery was there to be seen.

"Are you sure this isn't the Vinkus?" Elphaba asked.

"Fae, you've lived there too, this isn't it."

"Looks like it, though..."

"Except...it isn't."

"Still," Nessa interjected. "What do we do now that we're 'here' in Wherever-We-Are-Land?"

"How should I know?" Elphaba asked.

"Wait!" Fiyero shouted. Elphaba plopped back onto the ground.

"What is it now?" she groaned.

"I just saw something when you got up."

"What is it?"

"There! Look!"

Looking where instructed, Nessa let out a gasp while Glinda practically screamed. Lying on the sand just beneath Elphaba was a small dark stain of red.

"You're still bleeding?" Glinda asked. "But I-I-I thought you were..."

"What?"

"The staff!" she whined. "I thought it healed your wounds!"

"It did." Fiyero stated.

"Oh no," Nessa sighed.

"What, what is it?" Fiyero and Glinda asked simultaneously.

"It's Elphaba's time of the month." Nessa admitted. Fiyero's face drained of all color and Glinda shuddered and made an 'Ew!' noise.

"Nessa, don't you dare!"

"They need to know!"

"I swear, if you tell..."

"So you just got injured, and now you're bleeding _again_?" Fiyero asked, finally realizing what she meant by 'not bleeding' back in Druadan Forest.

"That's just the least of it," Nessa said. "I've lived with her, and she has her awkward moments when she's on her p..."

"Nessa, I will strangle you with my own hands!" Elphaba growled.

"'Awkward moments?" Fiyero asked.

"Like that first day of school?" Glinda asked.

"Yes," Nessa said. "But worse."

Elphaba sighed. All of them turned to her.

"What? Am I going to be a burden for you all?"

"Just don't agitate her," Nessa said to Glinda and Fiyero.

"No, no, I'm fine. Say what you wanna say!"

None of them felt like talking to her after that.

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><p><strong>(AN: I'll try to get another chapter posted as soon as possible.)<strong>

**(Any questions about where they're at or anything else? I'll answer them if I can, or tell you to keep reading [which you should be doing, by the way. lol])**


	4. Many More Meetings

**(AN: Just felt like I couldn't take that last chapter any further. Oh well, now that my internet is back [for the time being], I can get to work on my stories and you can read what's going on!)**

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><p><strong>Many More Meetings<strong>

The Ozians remained where they had landed for the next seven days. None of them wanted to be around Elphaba while she was menstrual. She seemed to be even more volatile than before, lashing out at almost nothing.

On the seventh day, when her cycle was finished, they all woke up to a rather disheartening revelation.

"We weren't exactly planning another long-term trip," Fiyero said. "So when we left Midgard, we didn't bring anything with us. What's worse, we're in the middle of the desert."

"And that's _not_ good, right?" Glinda asked.

"Of course it's not good!" Elphaba returned. "No water, no food, and we're in it!"

She sighed in defeat.

"Well," Nessa said. "We can't just give up. We've got ourselves and we've got baby Liir with us. We've got to at least try to get somewhere."

"I agree," Fiyero said. "Now, listen, I've done a lot of thinking…" Nessa and Elphaba both giggled. "You know, that's starting to get old."

"Kind of like a certain someone mentioning a certain ridiculous rumor about me being allergic to…"

"Please!" Nessa exclaimed. "Don't say that word! I'm drooling just thinking about water." She blew a raspberry. "There I go again!"

"Listen," Fiyero continued. "I'm thinking that we're probably somewhere in the Deadly Desert."

"I thought we _weren't_ there, Yero!" Elphaba interjected.

"Do you have any better ideas?"

"We're in the Shifting Sands, that's in the far East, at the borders of Munchkinland."

"Impossible!"

"But isn't the Deadly Desert supposed to be…well, _deadly_?"

"Maybe it's just a ruse, or a lie. You'd buy that, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, but I still think we're in the east."

"No, south." Fiyero said. "All we have to do is strike out due north from our current location and we'll be back in Oz before you know it!"

"Wait, I thought we weren't even _in_ Oz anymore." Nessa asked.

"If we go north," Elphaba said. "We'll be trapped in this desert even _longer_. What we _need_ to do is head west."

"No, that way, we'll never get out of the desert!"

"Just listen to me, Yero! I know what I'm doing!"

"So am I, Fae! I'm not useless, you know!"

"I never said you were!"

"Um, guys?"

"Well, sometimes I feel like I'm just baggage, like something you just drag along to do all the heavy lifting."

"Fiyero!"

"Elphaba!"

"Nessa, stop it!"

"No, _you_ stop it!" Nessa interjected. "If all we're going to do is argue, we might as well give up on trying all together."

All held their peace, panting heavily. The sun was beating down upon them from the sky and all were rather worn by reason of the heat.

"So we're going to north, right?" Fiyero asked.

"No, we're going west."

"How about we go north-_west_ and everybody can be happy?" Nessa asked.

"I agree." Glinda added.

"Now, wait, that won't do any good!" Fiyero said. "We'll be going _away_ from Oz."

"But we're not even _in_ Oz to begin with!" Nessa replied. "I thought we'd established that already."

"Then where _are_ we?"

More silence, more panting.

"So are we going to do something?" Glinda asked. "Because as far as I've seen, all we're doing is just biting each other's heads off, and it's making me tired."

"And thirsty." Nessa panted.

"And hungry!" Fiyero added.

"You need to cut off the eating."

"And you _need_ to eat more!" Glinda told Elphaba. "You're still so frail, and you've got a baby to be feeding."

"Fine, great idea!" Elphaba exclaimed. "What shall I eat first, huh? Tell me that!"

"Look at ourselves!" Nessa stated. "We can't have one moment without going at each other's throats! What's wrong with us?"

"It's the heat!" Elphaba stated.

"The starvation!" Glinda whined.

"The lack of water." Fiyero added.

"The over-abundance of stupid Winkie princes!"

"A certain grouchy cab..."

"What did you call me?"

"She's right, you know."

"Fiyero Tiggular!"

"I mean, you _can_ be a little bit grouchy."

And once again, it started.

* * *

><p>Nightfall. The arguing got them nowhere, just extremely weary and even hungrier than before. Nessarose and Glinda, the ones who did the least arguing, were the least weary and stayed awake through the night, with baby Liir in Glinda's arms.<p>

"Hmm," Glinda 'hmmph'd' very loudly, though not enough to wake Fiyero or Elphaba.

"What is it?" Nessa asked.

"This is all so confusifying," Glinda shook her head.

"What, that you're still in that Burgundian dress?"

"I know!" Glinda whispered, making a face. "It's absolutely hideocious. It doesn't show anything, nothing at all! And it's so horrible to wear in this heat!"

"I don't think this was designed for travel either." Nessa said. indicating to the black-and-red dress she wore.

"But that's not what's confusifying," Glinda continued. "Come here." She laid back upon the sandy ground, her front to the sky and baby Liir in her arms. Nessa crawled over to her side. "Look up at the sky." Nessa laid down at Glinda's side and looked up.

"All I see are stars." Nessa said.

"Exactly," Glinda said. "And look! Ozma's Star is off to the far uppy-right corner."

"You know about the stars?" Nessa asked, her voice breaking a little.

"Not much, just the whole thing about Ozma Star."

_Ozma is the Queen of Oz  
>Beauty-fair and eyes bright<br>Look to the north because  
>Her star shines there tonight<em>

"It's a little silly, a bit of nursery rhyme that I learned in the Upper Uplands." She giggled, then turned over and saw that Nessa was wiping her eyes.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Nessa began. "It's just, all this talk about stars reminded me of the times back in Colwen Grounds, when Elphaba would take me out under the stars at night." Glinda listened intently as Nessarose began what Glinda supposed was a little-known chapter of the infamous Thropp-family history.

"There wasn't always such animosity between us as you may have believed there to be," Nessa said. "She was my big sister Elphaba, always there to help me, always there to pick me up, always there to show me something wonderful, to protect me. At night, after she'd finished her homework, if she was still awake, she'd get me out of my bed, drag me into my chair and take me out into the gardens and we'd look up at the stars. She always knew the names of the stars, probably from Astronomy books. She'd always nabbed books from the local library, since Father would never let her go to a public school. He only let her go to Shiz for my sake, to take care of me." She sighed.

"That's so beautiful," Glinda said.

"Mhm," Nessa mused. She then pointed up at a specific star. "See that one? It's the part of the Butterfly Rose, the tip of the southern-most petal. It's red, like Quadling Country."

"Too bad it isn't wet," Glinda wished.

"Hey, none of that!" Nessa shook her head. She then pointed back to the sky. "It's too far off from where it should be."

"What do you think this means?" Glinda asked.

"Maybe we _are_ in Oz," Nessa said. "Or maybe we're close to Oz, but not actually _in_ Oz itself."

"That's even more confusifying." Glinda stated.

"Well, do you remember the other places we've been to?" Nessa asked.

"How can I forget?" Glinda returned.

"As a horse, I could look up to the sky whenever I felt like it. And I have: well, the stars in Middle-Earth are different than here in Oz. None of them were the same. In Midgard, I could almost swear that they were like those in Middle-Earth. I don't call myself a master star-gazer, so I could be wrong. But the stars here are like the old ones from Oz, just a little bit...different."

Both of the ladies went to sleep, pondering whatever this could mean.

* * *

><p>Morning arose with no help at all. Fiyero and Elphaba were still at each other's throats with their bickering, and Glinda was starting to wonder if they really <em>were<em> that deserving of each other. After all, lately, they seemed to be one breath away from an argument every two seconds.

Needless to say, she wasn't the only one who was tired of all the bickering.

Half-way through another round of horrendible arguing from Fiyero and Elphaba, with Nessa and Glinda covering their ears on the side-lines, baby Liir, quite forgotten in the wicker crib that Fiyero would carry on his back (now lying on the ground), started bawling.

Fiyero picked up the child and tried to soothe him down.

"Look what you've done!"

"_I've_ done?" Elphaba asked. "You know, you were the one who..."

"You threatened me!" he returned. "You were going to turn me into a newt! And seeing how well you turned me into a scarecrow before, I think it's safe to say you know what you're doing."

"So what, you're going to start blaming this on me?"

"It's not blame. It's the truth!"

Elphaba groaned, rolling her eyes.

"There's no such thing as truth!" she exclaimed. "Truth is perspective and some people actually _are_ comfortable with being morally ambiguous."

"Who's invention was that, the Wizard's?" Glinda asked.

"You stay out of this, Glinda!"

"But think about Liir! You're going to let your child..."

"_Your_ child, Yero!"

"_Our_ child! You're just going to abandon him, and for what? To prove that you're beyond good and evil? Whatever happened to the Elphaba Thropp I knew, who pledged herself to a cause not her own because she wished to make good?"

"Uh, guys?"

"She's not here anymore, Fiyero. She...She died when I sacrificed myself for that little brat." She pointed at Liir.

"People!"

"Nothing I do has good consequences, so I might as well stop trying, since I'm never going to do anybody any good."

"You're giving up?"

"Fiyero! Elphaba, s..."

"The Elphaba Thropp I knew was no quitter, she didn't give up or give in to anything!"

"You shouldn't set such high standards for me, Fiyero. I will never measure up to them!"

"Shut up already!"

Glinda, once again, had let her 'outside' voice come outside and play, and it got their attention.

"I think someone's coming!"

All arguing set aside, for the moment in case these new-comers proved unfriendly, the four and one half Ozians looked out where Glinda was pointing. In the distance, two figures were making their way across the desert towards where they now stood.

Without another word, they got up - Fiyero taking baby Liir with him - and ran out toward the two figures, hoping they might wave them down.

* * *

><p>Ten minutes can seem like a long time for those who have been walking in the desert, especially when hungry, weary and thirsty. Therefore, if those two figures actually <em>were<em> enemies, they had not the strength to defend themselves in case they were attacked.

The figures were now close enough to make out even for those who were not very good with near-sight (namely Elphaba). One was about average height, in a dusty violet uniform, with broad shoulders and an ungainly walk. The other was a little bit shorter, wearing a dull-gray uniform with a little cap atop his head.

As they were still some ways away, there was a loud cry of alarm, and the broad-shouldered warrior had to drag the shorter one the rest of the way. They were now coming to meet each other, and the short one hid behind the uniformed-man.

"Hail, travelers." the uniformed man said, in Common Ozian. The Ozians noted that he wore a strange glove, that looked like a gauntlet of metal.

"It's her! It's her!" the one behind him whined. "Come on, let's go before they recognize us!"

Too late. Glinda, Nessa and Elphaba recognized the voice, if not the form.

"Biq?" Glinda asked.

"Most people call me Boq, you know!" he replied. "Or the Tin Man."

"What happened to you?" Nessa asked.

"I don't know," he wailed. "But somehow I'm human again, no thanks to your or your sister!"

"Don't mess with me, Boq," Elphaba replied. "I am _so_ not in the mood for it!"

"Well, I am, and I've got nothing to loose! You ruined my life, and now you're back from the dead to haunt me!" He whispered to the other one, but loud enough that they could hear what he was saying. "Quick! Before they eat us, let's run!"

"We're not going to eat you, Boq." Nessa assured him.

"Maybe just a little," Fiyero jokingly said. Boq shrieked and Nessa elbowed Fiyero in the stomach.

"Ow!"

"See? We're not ghosts!" Nessa added, taking advantage of her little 'correcting' of Fiyero's behavior.

"And who are you?" Fiyero asked the broad-shouldered one. "I've never seen you before."

"No, but even in Ev we've heard rumors of the most scandalacious prince of the Vinkus," he replied. "Prince Tiggular, I presume?"

"Yes."

"Wait, Ev?" Elphaba asked.

"I know you," the stranger said, pointing his other, non-metallic-clad hand at her. "Ran out of people to scare in Oz?"

"What a thing to say!" Glinda shouted.

"You told me they were afraid of you in Oz," he continued. "Well, even without the propaganda, you can be quite scary sometimes."

"You know him?" Fiyero asked Elphaba.

"He's a traveler, a mercenary of some kind," she said. "He's been to Oz once, when I was a fugitive. He helped me find a safe haven in the Badlands of the Vinkus for Animals on the run. And _now_ he's upset with me because I couldn't be there to hold his little fake hand because I was pretending to be dead!"

"But I thought you _were_ dead!" Boq interrupted. "I mean, you screamed pretty convincingly, and that smoke rising from the floor of the castle!"

"Unlike you," the stranger said, pointing to Elphaba. "I believe in honor, and that means honoring promises made to those who've helped you in time of need. And I am anything _but_ a mercenary!"

"Can we at least know your name?"

"No!" Elphaba said.

"And who might you be?" the stranger asked the one who asked for his name.

"Nessarose Thropp," Nessa presented herself. "I'm Elphaba's sister. Perhaps you'll know be better as..."

"The Wicked Witch of the East!" Boq added.

"Just calm down, Boq, you're safe with me." the stranger said. He then turned to the other Ozians. "My name is Evemar Kloxolk, and I am a proud vassal of the Kingdom of Ev."

"Wait, are we in Ev?" Fiyero asked.

"Hardly," Evemar returned. "I don't know exactly where we are, except that we are in the same world that we know as our own, only not in our native countries."

"Huh?" Elphaba, Fiyero, Glinda and Nessa asked as once.

"Surely you didn't think that the world was confined to just Oz, did you?"

"Well, we've been to several places..." Glinda began.

"Wait, how do you know where we're at?" Elphaba inquired suspiciously.

"I flew." he answered, as if it were no thing.

"You flew?" Fiyero asked.

"Well, not personally. A Roc, a very old friend of mine, was told by a pair of ravens that my services were needed outside of Ev. So he flew me over the Great Sea and let me off here."

"You seem to know a little more than what's good for you," Elphaba said.

"Well, I hardly know everything," he admitted. "But I can see that you four have been in the desert for too long." He waved his hand at them. "Come on, there's a village a day's march south-west of here. They have a well."

Boq was still hiding behind Evemar's back. Glinda and Nessarose exchanged glances, as if they both somewhat knew secretly that both Elphaba and Fiyero were wrong with their compromise to go north-west.

"Excuse me, Mr. Kloxolk?" Nessa pipped up. "Um, but what is north-west?"

"How should I know? I'm a stranger to this land, same as you."

"What makes you think we're strangers?" Elphaba asked.

"Well, for one thing, you're going the wrong direction: passing the village completely by. Anyone from here with a brain would probably make for the village, especially if they were starving and thirsty in the desert."

"And why didn't _you_ go that way, Mr. Know-it-All?"

"Fae..."

"I didn't need lodging, and we were close."

"Close to what?"

"Questions later, please?" he asked. "For now, let's make for the village."

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: I wonder if anyone will recognize the OC I've brought in.)<strong>

**(He had a purpose before this story was put in, and he's supposed to be a little hard-edge [then again, Elphaba's being a royal pain too - which is important, later on]. He wasn't just a Gary-Sue I pulled out of the ether of my mind and brought into this story. But, as this is _musical_-verse and not _book_-verse, the Evemar Kloxolk of _this_ universe is still alive [since they are still in the 20th century], and has a few different things than the _book_-verse one.)**

**(How do you like that? New chapter on the way soon [hopefully])**


	5. Meraburg

**(AN: New chapter.)**

**(In case any were curious, that whole stargazing scene is somewhat based off of my personal perception of Nessarose. Many hate her just because of how she acts in Act II, but I think that there's a little bit of a sister-sister friendship going on between her and Elphaba [if she didn't care, why did she say "Oh, Elphaba." right after Frex left? Those few moments, where she says "I clash with anything" it just seems so much deeper than that. Like we have two sisters who, despite how they have been raised, genuinely love each other]. And my statement about Elphaba not being able to see far is about her glasses. I saw one person parody that, but that was a little bit of _reducto ad absurdum_. As far as this goes, she's like me - she can see, but her far-range vision is poor [I think some wise person said something about clairvoyant people being near-sighted. Who was that again?])**

**(Other things to occur in this chapter.)**

* * *

><p><strong>Meraburg<strong>

Almost three days in the middle of the desert with no food or water can turn a healthy man into a starving beast. Which is nothing to speak of these Ozians, now making their way south-west towards the town.

At the head of the group was Evemar Kloxolk, who seemed to be tireless, even though he was carrying a passed out Glinda on his shoulders. Fiyero had Liir on his back, and even though Elphaba begged, pleaded and even threatened, Boq would not come near her or Nessarose, so she had to carry her sister arm in arm.

"How are things in Oz?" Elphaba asked Boq.

"Why should you care?" he retorted.

"Because I do," she plainly stated.

"Well, Glinda..." He took one look at the little blond on Evemar's back, and his face fell. "This is all very confusifying."

"What do you mean, kiddo?" Fiyero asked.

"I'd appreciate if you didn't call me that, Tiggular," Boq stated. "I'm an adult now, not some little Munchkin-dweeb you can muscle away from your Glinda!"

"She's not _my_ Glinda, I'm married to Elphaba."

Boq came to a halt and turned to look at the Winkie Prince.

"You what?"

"Yeah, we're married."

"To her? B-But I mean, it's...it's her!"

"So? What about her?"

"She's green, she's scary and she's a wicked witch! Are you under a spell? I think she might have enchanted you. Would have been easy, you never were the brightest tool in the box."

"Can you all keep it down back there?" Evemar asked. "Save your breath, it'll only make you more thirsty if you talk."

"And who made you leader of our group?" Elphaba snapped back.

"I did." he replied with a smirk.

"And I second that motion!" Boq stated proudly. "He seems to know what he's doing."

"_Acts_ like he knows what he's doing, more like." Elphaba quipped.

"Listen, Miss Thropp..."

"Mrs. Tiggular!" Fiyero stated.

"Mrs. Thropp!" Elphaba added.

"Huh?" Fiyero and Nessa both queried.

"But you take on your husband's last name, don't you?" Nessa asked.

"I won't," Elphaba proudly stated.

"How will people know we're together?"

"Sometimes I wish they didn't," Elphaba snorted.

"Whatever you call yourself," Evemar continued. "When I was your age, I had already visited six of the islands in the Nonestic Sea."

Elphaba scoffed. "The sea is a fable."

"Need water!" Nessa cried out.

Evemar sighed, and let them have a break. He had planned on going on until nightfall, but this bickering was tiresome.

As they all took wind, Nessa saw Evemar Kloxolk remove the glove off his right hand and use it to wipe his forehead. It was then that she realized that his right hand did not move. It was not even made of flesh, like his left hand.

"What?" he asked, noting that she was staring at his hand. "This?" He quickly placed the glove back over his hand. "It's a long story, one I'd rather not bring up here and now."

"What happened?" Glinda, who had just woken up again and hadn't heard what he said, asked.

"Didn't I just say 'not now?'" he asked.

"But I wanna know!"

"Would you like it if I asked you a personal question and demanded that you give me an answer?" he returned.

Glinda looked like she had been yelled at, even though his voice hadn't raised at all during the discussion.

"Are we ready now?" Evemar asked. "We still have the rest of the day ahead of us, and there's many miles to go before we reach the town."

"Wait, what?" Nessa asked. "You shouldn't have snapped at Glinda like that."

"There's no time, we have to keep going," he said.

Suddenly, a ball of fire struck him in the back, sending him sprawling face-first into the sand.

"You apologize to Glinda!" Elphaba shouted.

"Elphie, I'm fine!"

But Evemar was back up, pushing himself ungainly to his feet, and drawing out his sword. It was green, like the sword that Elphaba bore.

"Coward!" he hissed. "Attacking someone when their back is turned!"

"I'll attack you whenever I want to!" she returned.

"Fae, this is ridiculous!" Fiyero interjected.

"Go on, do it!" Boq urged. "Fight! Fight! Fight!"

"Stop it, Boq!" Evemar stated, and he promptly shut up. He then turned to Elphaba. "I can't understand why they follow you, if you lash out at any little thing."

"Now _that_ was a mean thing to say!" Glinda said.

"It's true," Evemar replied. "Now I know you hate me and everything, but if I turned my back on you now, you'll probably die out here, being strangers and not knowing your way to the town. So can you just shut up until we get to the town? Once we're there, you can go wherever you'd like."

He turned around and walked off into the desert. Fiyero reached down and pulled Glinda up to her feet.

"I don't think I like him very much," Glinda said.

* * *

><p>Nightfall. They had made a tiny campfire, and were now resting from the weary travel of the day. Elphaba was being separative and moody all by herself, and Fiyero, with Liir on his back, was sitting over with Glinda and Nessa, who had the Grimmerie out. Boq was, of course, hanging out with the only person he felt safest with.<p>

Glinda sighed. "Oh, this is useless."

"Come on! There were spells that affected the body, I'm sure we can find something." Nessa stated. "Fiyero, can you help?"

"To be honest," he said. "I don't even know how you two can read that. I can't."

"I can't either," Nessa said. She bit her lower lip, remembering painfully the last time she tried to read it.

Boq, meanwhile, was whispering in Evemar Kloxolk's ear.

"You would be wise to put that book up," he said, pointing to the Grimmerie.

"Why's that?" Glinda angrily retorted.

"Boq here says that it's nothing but trouble," Kloxolk replied. "You could hurt someone."

"We're not trying to hurt anyone," Glinda said.

"If you must know," Nessa stated, at which Fiyero looked away. "We're looking for a spell that will induce, uh..." She pointed at Liir on Fiyero's back, then grabbed her breast with the other. Boq looked away with an embarrassed expression.

"Why?" Evemar asked. "Cannot his mother feed her?"

"Well, none of us have really been eating anything for a while," Nessa said. "And, well, Elphaba's been acting a bit..."

"What?" the green woman interjected. She now rose to her feet. "What have I been acting?" She then lunged at Fiyero, coming to him face-to-face. "Yes, I don't want that baby!" She then turned to Nessa. "I wish you'd leave me alone!" Glinda. "You're more trouble than you're worth!" Boq. "Grow up already!" Then Evemar. "I don't believe in your fantasy stories and yes, I _am_ green! Like it?"

"Will you please get out of my face?" he asked.

"Why? Does it make you uncomfortable? Does the green freak shoving her freakishness in your face make you uncomfortable? Huh! Well, I'm sorry, but life is not all about you."

"And it's not all about you either!"

At this, Elphaba jumped on Evemar, beating him with her fists, shouting and screaming incoherently. His right arm came up to defend his face, and Elphaba suddenly stopped, cradling one fist in the other.

"You hit me!" she shouted at him, getting up off him.

"I didn't," he replied. "I was merely protecting myself."

"You hit Elphie!" Glinda cried.

"I swear, I would never hit a woman..."

"You hit her!" Nessa joined in. Evemar simply rolled his eyes and turned his back to them, trying desperately to sleep.

"That does it," Glinda stated. "I loathe him. Pure, unadulterated loathing also!"

Elphaba was looking warily at Kloxolk's right arm, wondering why it hurt so much to strike that one arm in particular.

* * *

><p>About midnight, when everyone was asleep, a certain Wicked Witch of the East was holding her nephew in her arms. She didn't know how he could have stopped crying, since he hadn't eaten anything since...well, since before she could remember. Maybe it was a little silly, thinking that she could find a lactating spell in the Grimmerie. But, of all the members of their group, Liir needed to eat the most, and Elphaba wouldn't let him near her.<p>

_Oh, Elphaba, what's gotten into you?_ she thought.

"Fancy that," she turned to see who spoke. It was Boq.

"The way you're holding that baby," he said grimly. "It almost looks like you're a normal person."

"Boq, will you please come off it already?" she asked, then sighed. "Look, I'm sorry I tried to keep you in Munchkinland."

"And shrank my heart!"

"And shrank your heart." she added. "I...I just...didn't want to spend the rest of my life alone, and..." She paused.

"And what?"

"I kind of like you, Boq."

"Kind of like me?" he repeated.

"Well, threatening me with a letter-opener," she replied. "Then telling me that you never really cared for me, that you were going to leave me for Glinda, didn't help you in any way."

"I thought you understood!"

"I did," she let out.

"You did?"

She nodded ruefully.

"Then why did you...?"

"I didn't want to believe it," she admitted. "That night, at the OzDust Ballroom, when we danced. It was the first real happy night of my life. I felt like you liked me out of more than just pity. I wanted us to be like that, so I kept telling myself that you would grow out of Glinda eventually, that you were really interested in me."

"Whoa," he stated.

"What?"

"I always thought women were so hard to comprehend, like everything was always so complex and-and-and-and that was just...I mean..." He whistled. "Plain as could be."

"I don't know what came over me," Nessa said. "I just spoke from the heart."

Silence.

"Can I ask you a question?" Boq asked.

"Sure."

"What if I still want Glinda?"

Nessarose sighed. She never expected this to happen, that she could ever be reunited with Boq. Even so, with Glinda single, it seemed obvious that he would run back to her, begging to be her boyfriend.

"If you _really_ want her," Nessa stated. "I won't stand in the way anymore."

"But, what about that whole nonsense about..."

"I had to walk three hundred miles alone!" she retorted, a little more emphatically than she should have. "It was the worst four days I've ever had!" She wrapped her arms around her knees, a fearful look on her face.

Boq walked over and placed his arm around her shoulder.

"No, Boq," she shook her head, pushing his arm aside.

"What?"

"I don't want pity," she said. "I'm through with being treated like a porcelain doll about to break."

"I mean it, really," he said in earnest. "That sounds awful."

Nessarose smiled, and without even thinking, kissed Boq on the cheek. When she pulled away, he looked like he'd been hit by a ton of bricks. With a light head, he collapsed into the sandy earth.

* * *

><p>By morning's light, a tiny black smudge had appeared on the horizon. The sun's warming rays coming from the east behind them illuminated red-gold upon roof-tops as they got closer. The desert plain ran dead flat for several miles all around, and this town was situated upon the midst of this plain. From where they could see - at least those who could see far - the edge of a town fenced on all sides with a stone wall.<p>

"There it is, people," Evemar Kloxolk said, pointing to the town. "Meraburg."

In quiet, the group made their way into the town. Though nobody stopped them at the gates, they definitely received strange looks: both Evemar and his ungainly walk and Elphaba's green skin.

"Why are they staring at us?" Boq, who was not used to so much attention, whispered.

"Maybe they think you look funny," Elphaba snidely responded.

As they came to the center of town, a middle-aged man with straw-colored hair, a three inch goatee and a finely curled mustache, walked up with several strong-looking townsmen.

"Welcome, strangers," the straw-headed one greeted. "To the humble town of Meraburg. Where do you hail from?"

"You've never heard of it," Fiyero said.

"I doubt it," the straw-haired man replied.

"Merin's the smartest man in the village," one of the strong-men at his side spoke up.

"Yes, I am," Merin stated. "And I'm also the village protector. Tell me where you're from. Now!"

"Why does it matter?" Kloxolk asked.

"You could be Autnians," Merin returned, sending a condescending glare into Evemar's eye. "You certainly look it, half-man."

"I'm from Ev, if you must know," he replied. "These four, I believe, are from Oz."

"Never heard of it!" another one of Merin's muscle-men stated.

"You came from the east," Merin stated. "There's nothing to the east, just rocks and sand."

"No, no, he's right," Fiyero stated. "We're from Oz."

"Oz is a myth," Merin said. "There's nothing beyond Maaptia, only the edge of the world."

"Then where did _we_ come from?" Elphaba asked.

Merin suddenly became silent, looking first at his men, then at the strangers.

"You would be wise to tell your pet to keep it's whining, b*tching trap shut, or I will personally break it's teeth in with my foot."

Elphaba lunged at him, and almost instantly, two of the muscle-men stepped up and pushed her thin, bony body back, throwing her into the sand of the ground.

"Are you alright?" Fiyero asked, running to her side and offering her his hand.

"Sure, no thanks to you." she said, refusing his hand and pulling herself up on her own.

"Excuse me?"

They turned about and saw a rather peculiar sight approaching them. It was rather short, barely a few inches taller than Glinda, wearing a sand-blasted poncho and a pair of goggles over his eyes.

"You must be strangers here," he said. It was male. "Everyone knows better than to get on Merin's bad side."

"He's perfectly mean!" Glinda complained.

"He's also the only law around here," he replied. "Unless you'd like to beg the Autnians for justice, and they only look after their own. Say, you look like you've been in the desert too long. Why don't you come over to my place? I have cactus juice, and a little bit of food."

Without words, they agreed and followed after the short fellow. He led them to the side of a building, into the cellar, and opened a door at the bottom. This lead into another room that was lit with candles and torches, but still seemed to be quite cold and austere.

"This is my place," the short-man said. "It's not much, but it's home. Here, have a seat." He pulled up a stool for the ladies, then a barrel and pushed a large crate off from against the wall where it had sat. Elphaba took the stool, leaving Glinda and Nessa to take the barrel and crate.

"Sorry, gentlemen, but I don't often get visitors down here, or I would have purchased another stool."

"That's fine," Kloxolk said. "I prefer to stand any way."

Boq shifted uncomfortably as far away from Elphaba as he could and Fiyero stood between her and Glinda.

"Right, refreshments first," the short man said. He brought out a flask made of clay, removed the cork and handed it out to them. "Go ahead, drink. It's good stuff, this cactus juice. Not exactly tasty, but it'll quench your thirst."

They all drank a little, though Elphaba sniffed it first. Only Kloxolk managed to drink any of it without spewing it back up.

"Please, I wish you wouldn't do that," the short man said. "That's really hard to come by."

"It's horrible!" Glinda exclaimed. "Don't you have any water?"

"Well, this _is_ the frontier of the Outan Desert," the short man said. "The nearest river is Angbor's Bow to the west. About seven days hard riding by horse, if I'm not mistaken."

"Who's bright idea was it to build a town in the middle of the desert?" Elphaba asked.

"Oh, it wasn't always like this," the short man said. "At least, so they say." He removed his goggles, revealing two eyes, brown and youthful. "I'm only eighteen, I don't remember that long ago."

"What happened that long ago?" Kloxolk asked, when all seemed to be silent.

"It's said that Angbor's Bow used to be only three days march from here," the short man began. "Then Autnia was established just below the falls of the Northern Mountains, and the River-bed dried up. My parents told me that the people of the Lowlands sent emissaries to Autnia, pleading for some kind of help: they never returned."

"So there's no water here?" Glinda asked.

"Not unless you're with Merin," the short man said. "Anything that comes to this city goes through him first."

"And he doesn't give you any?" Nessa asked.

The short man shook his head.

"And just who are you?" Fiyero asked.

"Oh, sorry," the short man chuckled. "My mistake. You know, I usually get going with all the talking and forget about myself. My name is Opman. I'm the Village...Eccentric!"

One by one they introduced themselves. When he came to Elphaba, Opman gave a tiny yelp of surprise.

"Yes, I'm really green." Elphaba replied with annoyance.

"I didn't say anything." he returned.

"You were going to, though."

"No, I wasn't!"

"Everyone does, I know you would! What? Does my being green make you uncomfortable? Huh? Well, it should! I'm uncomfortable as it is with all you staring at me, so you should be uncomfortable yourself."

Opman whispered: "I'm sorry."

"Elphaba!" Glinda replied. "That was a very mean thing to say."

"She's right, you know," Kloxolk interrupted. "Just because the world has treated you unfairly does not give you the right to treat it unfair in return."

"What would _you_ know about unfair treatment?" Elphaba snapped back.

Evemar paused, then brushed his hair aside. They hadn't paid much attention at first, but now they saw that his right eye wasn't moving. It just stood there, glowing faintly in the light of the candles. With his left hand, he removed his right glove. In its place was a thing made of clockwork and gears that slowly ticked and moved.

"Incredible!" Opman whispered, quite forgotten on his side of the room.

"I was engaged to be married," Kloxolk began. "Until Langwidere thought my betrothed's head looked better on _her_ shoulders than my dear's own." He paused, a wave of pain passing over his face. "She was the love of my life, and now she's dead. I-I tried to avenge her, but..." He waved his right arm, the clock-work thing waving idly and unfeelingly. He pointed to his foot with his left hand, then back to his eye.

"Langwidere cut off my leg, my arm, and she took out my eye." he sighed. "She left me with nothing more but anger...and remorse."

Silence once again. Placing his glove back on his hand, Evemar Kloxolk hobbled over to one corner of the room.

Opman, sighing nervously, was the first one to break the silence.

"Welcome to Meraburg."

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: Yeah, I'm coming up with this story all on its own. Hopefully it will last longer than ten chapters.)<strong>

**(There's a reason Elphaba's acting this way. So far her 'good deeds' have only been for herself, and something else that happened _recently_ has triggered her violent moods. But I won't tell you what, not yet at least.)**

**(I had originally wanted to wait to tell Kloxolk's back-story in _The Great War of Oz Revisited_. But nothing's coming through with that. You'll hear more about it there, when that finally gets published. I've been dropping hints about him, even in the _Grimmerie_ series.)**

**(Hopefully we've got another chapter coming soon, sorry again for the wait)**


	6. A Very Serious Situation

**(AN: Now we get to see a little bit of what's wrong with our dearly beloved, misunderstood green girl.)**

**(It's part of a way for me to exorcise most of Elphaba's disdainful behavior while doing it in a way that still respects her as a character. I know there aren't many of you, who may be stuck in my love-hate relationship with Elphaba, but if anyone else is, you know what I mean: you want to respect her as a character yet you cannot abide her less than admirable traits.)**

* * *

><p><strong>A Very Serious Situation<strong>

Life in Meraburg was not easy for the six outlanders. They had no money, and so could not find places to stay, and therefore had to sleep in Oppman's underground shed. Contact with anyone other than Oppman was almost non-existent: nobody seemed interested in the outlanders. While this was a little bit welcomed, it was not the best way to pass the time. Oppman was always busy with something, so the six Ozians usually had only themselves for company.

This was never a good thing, not in the slightest. Liir was now in the care of Glinda, Fiyero and Nessa, and he wasn't doing very well. Malnutrition was taking it's toll on the poor baby: but what was worse, they had no doctor. Boq was still very separative, and stayed close to Kloxolk.

Elphaba, however, was not one anyone wanted to be around. She seemed to be in a perpetual state of moodiness, which was set off by even the slightest provocation. It was now far beyond just annoyance and had passed into plain, old-fashioned, hatred: as if she had finally had enough of these people and was snapping, if not having snapped already. The worst part was that, more than being in a violent temper all the time, she refused to nurse baby Liir, which put his life in grave danger. The others, of course, tried to get her to see reason, but she replied with pretty much the same thing:

"So it's my fault that Fiyero did what he did to me? I'm supposed to take care of that ugly little monster?"

Of course, these kinds of confrontations never ended well. Fiyero, Glinda and Nessa would press harder, trying to make Elphaba nurse her own child, and she would fume and storm off angrily, keeping to herself and lashing out vehemently at whoever even spoke to her. It was an annoyance at the least, and a mood-killer at the worst, yet it was nothing compared to what would soon happen.

There came a time one morning, far past the hour of midnight and yet still not dawn. Oppman was away, though he never said why he was away, and the six Ozians had his little shack and the underground portion thereof all to themselves. Yet they were all very grumpy and upset, for the smallest member of their party had woken them all up in the middle of the night with loud, ear-piercing wails and cries. No matter how much Nessa or Glinda, or even Fiyero, tried to calm baby Liir down, the screams would not subside.

After hours of crying, where even the deep-sleeping Kloxolk had been woken up, Fiyero swore loudly.

"Why can't he just be quiet for two seconds?" he asked nobody in particular.

"You know why," Nessa, who held baby Liir in her arms - and therefore had the worst of the baby's sonic assault - replied.

"I can't make Elphaba be a mother to him!" Fiyero returned.

"What about that book?" Evemar Kloxolk stated, pointing to the Grimmerie in Glinda's hands. "I've seen you two ladies pouring over it. No answers there?"

"There's nothing about nursing a baby," Glinda replied.

"Well, can't you do something?" Fiyero said, gesturing to Glinda. The memory of a clandestine moment in the pools of Henneth Annun, what felt like a life-time ago, burning hot in the back of his mind with embarrassment.

"It's not like that, Fiyero!" she returned, her voice breaking. "I-I mean, Momsy and Popsicle never taught me how to take care of a baby!"

"What about you?" he turned to Nessa.

"I'm no good either," she replied. "I was groomed to take over my father's place as Governor of Munchkinland, not to be a mother."

Whether by reason of whatever afflicted him, or because of their shouts, baby Liir gave out another ear-piercing cry.

"Enough!" Boq cried. "I've had enough! I'm not even supposed to be here! I was more than happy being the Emperor of the Winkies back in Oz."

"What did you call me?" Fiyero asked, profound offense rising in his voice.

Baby Liir screamed even louder.

"Alright!" Kloxolk interjected, his voice calm in regard to the shouting. They paid him no heed at first, until he pushed Boq to the floor with his clock-work arm and stood before Fiyero, looking at him and the two women.

"We stand to lose everything if we keep arguing," he said. "Especially the child. What he needs is his mother."

"But Elphie won't..." Glinda replied.

"There comes a time," he returned. "When we all have to stop thinking about ourselves and give a care to the needs of others for a change."

"But you can't force anything with her," Fiyero returned. "She'll resent you for it."

"I don't care if she hates me for it," Kloxolk stated. "That baby needs a chance to live, and I won't let her neglect be the cause of him dying." Without another word, he turned tail and hobbled out of their room, across to the garage where Elphaba had ofted taking to locking herself away from the rest of them.

The others followed in his wake, with Nessa trying hard to calm baby Liir down, all to no avail. Glinda helped Boq up to his feet and they took up the rear, surprised that Elphaba could be ignoring Liir's piercing screams. At the door, Kloxolk banged with his flesh hand, clenched in a fist, several times, demanding that Elphaba open up for them. No answer.

"She can be this stubborn," Fiyero returned. "Trust me."

"Even at the cost of another's life?" he rebutted.

"Let me do it," Glinda said, pushing her way up in front and knocking on the door. "Elphie, are you there?" Once more, there was no answer. "Elphie, you can't go on like this. Please, open up for us." There was once again no answer.

"Stand back," Kloxolk said. "I'll kick the door down."

"No!" Glinda interjected, throwing herself in front of the door. "You're so pushy! Elphie and I have been friends since our college days. If there's anybody who she'll open up to, it will be me. But we're doing this my way, without force and fists."

"Liir might not have that long to wait!" Fiyero stated, urgency in his voice.

Glinda, hearing another blood-curdling scream from the baby, ran her hands to the door-knob and quickly wrung it open. She squeezed herself into the crack that appeared between the portal and the door, entered the room...and let out a scream from inside. Fiyero threw the door open the rest of the way and gasped as he saw what lay within the garage.

Elphaba was lying on the floor of the garage, her eyes opened yet vacant. Glinda was kneeling over her, sobbing with fear. One by one, gasps or cries of alarm came from those behind Fiyero.

* * *

><p>The situation could not have gone from bad to worse any quicker. Elphaba was non-responsive, alive for all they could guess by feeling that she was still slightly warm, and yet they didn't know what was exactly wrong with her. They could not leave Oppman's shack, for no one in the town of Meraburg would look them in the eye, or even answer them if they asked for a physician. Oppman they rarely saw, and when they did finally see him, three days after discovering Elphaba comatose, he said he would bring a healer the next time he was over. He did not say when that would be.<p>

In the end, only two days passed since they found Elphaba and Oppman dropped in from whatever he had been doing, and then just one more until he returned with the healer. By then, the Ozians were all on edge from the screaming baby and the urgency of his mother's condition, though they still knew not what precisely was the matter. On the night of the third day, the door to Oppman's shack opened up and he walked in with an old man behind him. He was clad as Oppman was, in clothes that looked like they had weathered a sand-storm or two, with a leather cap over his head. A large bag he held over one of his shoulders and he introduced himself as Menmam.

As soon as he had been introduced, he went into the room where they had laid Elphaba down and examined her privately. He said that he needed as few interruptions as possible as he tried first to discern what was the problem with the green-skinned woman. An hour or so later, Menmam emerged from the room.

"Well, doctor?" Fiyero asked.

"Please," the old man dismissed. "Call me Menmam. I'm just a healer, not a doctor."

"Can you tell us what's wrong with her?" Fiyero returned.

"It's difficult to determine," he replied.

"Why?" Glinda asked. "I thought you could help us!"

"Patience, lady. It's difficult to determine because, as far as my learning is concerned, your friend is seriously ill of a disease I have never seen before."

"Then what good are you?" Boq queried.

"Just because I've never seen this particular disease before," Menmam said. "Doesn't mean I'm completely powerless to stop it. By the memory of the Northern Kingdom, I will not rest until I have restored your friend to health, or died in the attempt." This did not seem to lighten the mood, as Menmam had intended to do.

"But how can you do that," Kloxolk inquired. "If you've never encountered this disease before?"

"There are clues, you see," the old man said. "Symptoms by which one can determine what is wrong, and thereby form an educated guess."

"That doesn't sound safe to me." Nessa warily stated.

"Well, I'm afraid," Menmam interjected. "That you have precious little choice otherwise."

They were silent, save for Liir's crying which set them all on edge.

"So, what can you guess?" Fiyero asked.

"First," Menmam began. "I would like to know what she has eaten recently."

"Nothing," Glinda said. "None of us have had anything proper to eat in a while."

"Even the child?" Menmam asked, Liir's cries piercing the ears of all present. "By all the gods, that's not right. To starve a child so young! He should be receiving his mother's nourishment!"

"We can't," Fiyero said. "She's the baby's mother."

At this, Menmam's face twisted in instant concern. "Has she fed this baby recently?"

"No, not recently," Fiyero replied.

"Have any of you come in contact with fluids from her body? Blood, spit, anything!"

"Well," Glinda said. "She took a rather serious wound before we got here."

"Yes, I saw that." Menmam nodded.

"But that can't be it," Glinda continued. "It's all healed up."

"I fear that she might have received poisoning through a transfusion of blood," Menmam said.

"Huh?" Fiyero inquired.

"Someone's blood came into contact with hers, and it has been poisoned." he said. He then took out a small crystal phial filled with something black like hot asphalt.

"I took this from your friend," he said. This made them all give a cry in shock.

"That's not Elphie's blood," Glinda stated in horror.

"So I believe," Menmam replied. "Now that I have a sample of some of this poisonous substance, I will test it's effects, so that we might be better equipped to combat it and save your friend."

"We don't have time for this!" Fiyero urged.

"What do you suggest I do?" Menmam replied sarcastically. "Drill a hole in her back and let this black bile drain out of her?"

"Well, if it works..."

"If it works, it might also kill her."

"I thought you said you didn't know what you were doing."

"I am learning!"

"Yeah, and while you're learning, she's in there dying, and so's my child!"

"Fiyero..."

"Enough of these games!"

"Fiyero, please!" Glinda tried to pull him away. "He's doing the best he can do."

"Well, it's not enough!"

"Incredible!" Menmam took a step back the phial still in his hands. Fiyero surged forward, but the old man took a step back. "Please, stay there. I must put my thought to the trial!" He stepped back again, then once more. After he had stepped back five strides from Fiyero, he looked up. "Now, how do you feel?"

"Okay, I guess." Fiyero said. "Look, what's this all about?" He took a step forward, towards the old man.

"Now, how do you feel?"

"What difference does it make how I feel?" Fiyero replied, his tone harsh and cold. "Quit playing games or else..." Menmam took a step back.

"Incredible!"

"Would you care to tell us," Kloxolk, who had remained silent through this ordeal, queried. "What's so incredible?"

"I hope I'm wrong, though," the old man said, staring at the phial. "I've heard about these things before, but I never thought...in my life-time!"

He ran over to his bag, which had been laid outside the room where Elphaba lay, and pulled out a large, leather-bound tome. This he opened up and began to read from.

"What? What is it?" Nessa asked. "Did you find something?"

"Not really," the old man replied. "But I'm hot on the trail." He held the book open for all to see, and began to read from it silently.

"Yes, this is it!" he said. "Oh, but this makes the situation all the worse! Praise the gods that poor baby wasn't fed by his mother, or this could have been three times worse than it already is!"

"What's going on?" Fiyero asked, taking a step forward.

"Please!" Menmam plead, covering the phial with his hands. "Don't come too near to this foul substance. It's been setting you all on edge."

"Oh, you don't think it was the baby screaming it's head off?" Boq asked.

"He's crying because he's hungry," Menmam stated. "That's what's worse, I fear. Unless the mother can feed her child, I'm afraid he won't last very long."

Glinda gasped in shock. "But can't we find a nanny? Someone to take care of her?"

"Nannies only come in rich towns, child, not in Meraburg." Menmam shook his head.

"But what about Elphi-Elphaba, I mean?" Nessa asked.

"If this black bile," Menmam answered, shaking his fist, clenched within the tiny crystal phial. "Can alter your mood this easily, by just being around it, I fear what it may do to her, it being inside her."

"What are you going to do now?" Fiyero asked.

"You must tell me," he turned to them. "When did this first happen? When did she start becoming unbearably irritable?"

"Well," Fiyero scoffed. "I mean, she's not the easiest person to get along with."

"The attack!"

"What attack?"

"We were attacked," Nessa explained. "By, by this giant-thing, and it hurt Elphaba. That's where she got that wound. Ever since then, she's been distant and moodified, and not in a good way."

"I think this might be the root of our problem," Menmam stated. "How long ago was this?"

"At least a week, I think," Fiyero said.

Menmam sighed, as if in defeat. The others crowded in about him, fearing the worst was yet to come.

"I think I understand now," he said. "This is not a disease of natural causes, not in the least. It affects the mood and the emotions. I've heard about certain cases where, if left alone long enough, it will enter the mind and then..." He sighed.

"Then what?" Glinda asked, tears welling up in her eyes.

"She will be lost to you." Menmam stated.

"What can we do?" Fiyero asked.

"We can only wait," Menmam bleakly answered. "And hope that her own will is strong enough to combat this disease."

"Elphie's a strong-willed woman." Glinda said, hoping to find some kind of hope.

"Yet she's been infected for so long already, who can know if she can fight it, or if she even wants to anymore?"

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: More to be revealed in the next chapter.)<strong>

**(One thing I don't like about _Star Trek_ is that, if they are discovering new worlds and seeking out new life-forms, how come they know so much about them already by the time they made first contact and have the answers to all their questions? But, most importantly, the cures for all of their diseases. Seriously, it seems like they know the answer for a race whose intelligence and technological advancement is far beyond their own.)**

**(This is relevant because it explains why Menmam the healer doesn't know _exactly_ what is going on with Elphaba, because what they're dealing with is something not of their world. I would expect real life physicians to approach an alien disease in the same way, focusing on the symptoms and trying to find a way through that way. Seems more logical/realistic.)**

**(Other than that, what do you think?)  
><strong>


	7. Me, Myself and I

**(AN: Sorry for the long wait, but at last I've got in me a desire to tell more stories about _Wicked_, which brings me back to this tale. Now the future is uncertain once again, but this is for certain: you will see why Elphaba has been acting erratically lately.)**

* * *

><p><strong>Me, Myself and I<strong>

A pair of brown eyes, flecked with gray, opened suddenly upon a strange new world. Oppman's underground dwelling was only slightly familiar, yet it now seemed fundamentally different. For one thing, it was quiet: no voices murmuring in hushed tones, thinking they were evading clever ears, and no crying from an unwanted child.

Elphaba Thropp pushed herself up off from where she laid and took in her surroundings. Aside from the quiet, the place she found herself in was darker than she remembered it. In all truth, the surroundings appeared to her eyes almost surreal, like something that was so shockingly real, it couldn't actually exist.

The deafening silence was suddenly broken by a mocking laugh. She looked round and round, but only the shadows met her searching eyes.

"What's wrong, Elphaba?" a voice asked. "Can't find me?" Elphaba looked around, but there was no sign of anyone who had spoken, just a voice and laughter in the air. "If you can't see it, it isn't there, right?"

Suddenly, Elphaba felt herself thrown down onto the floor face first. A sharp pain spilled across her nose, which was now cold and moist.

"Real enough for you?"

"Who are you?" she asked through her broken and bloody nose.

"Look in the mirror, Elphaba Thropp," the voice returned. "There is your answer."

She pushed herself up into a standing position, then wiped the chilling liquid from off her face. Instead of blood, which would have been warm and crimson-red, the cold, clammy substance she rubbed off her nose was black.

"Loki," she breathed. "That-that thing, it attacked me, it's hand went..." The laugh again.

"So predictable," the voice said. Elphaba turned about and saw, to her amazement, the speaker of the voice.

The face was her face, the body was her body: but it was wholly different. Its eyes were black, like two holes in existence leading into nothing. Its skin, also, was not green, but a pleasant pale color.

"You can deny it all you want," the figure said to her. "But I am you. I know everything about you...your memories..."

Everything became black, like a heavy, dark fog had descended upon Elphaba's vision, obscuring even this pale figure. When it was released at last, she found herself in the familiar halls of Colwen Grounds. Someone was screaming, and other voices were crying. She threw her hands over her ears to stop out the sound, she dug her feet into the hard-wood floors, but she was being pulled against her will towards that room, where the noise seeped through even her fingers.

Suddenly the scene changed and she found herself surrounded by a sea of angry faces, all of them contorted in livid expressions of pure hatred. Some were throwing things at her or spitting on her. Rude hand gestures and sometimes even rocks found their way toward Elphaba and, suddenly, she saw her own pale face looking out from the crowd.

"Convinced?" it mocked. "Oh, but there's so much more that I know about you than just that."

The scene changed again, now a secluded room in a thatched hall. Elphaba saw herself, separate from herself, arms wrapped around a muscular body covered in blue diamond tattoos. The lovers sighed and moaned passionately, rolling about in their fur blankets, before the woman looked up and Elphaba cried out in shock. The face of the thing that was her was pale.

"I know your desires as well," it mocked.

More images flashed hither and yon through her mind. She saw a little old man standing next to her, hand in hand with her, and her hand wasn't green anymore. She saw a bald man and an auburn-headed young woman beaming up at her from the audience with pride.

"What do you want from me?" Elphaba screamed.

"I want you to acknowledge me," the voice calmly replied, all the images disappearing. They were now in a dark place, with no light save for a tiny speck that was being shrouded by darkening clouds.

"For years I have been subdued," it began. "You've pushed me down, but I'm always there. I've even come out on top several times. But no more! Face me for what I am, embrace what will always be there."

"NO!"

Elphaba looked around for the source of the second voice, and saw a little green girl, her face beaming with bright innocence in the midst of this darkness.

"You don't have to follow her anymore," the little green girl shook her head. "She's bad, everything she does turns bad."

"And what happens when you listen to that little fool?" the first voice mocked. "Nothing ever goes your way!"

"There's still hope, Elphaba!" the little girl said.

"Hope? Ha!" the other one shouted. "You don't believe in hope, Elphaba Thropp. Admit it, you don't hold with this optimistic, life is precious and beautiful bull-shit: that's for simpletons. Only the strong have any real power: is that strength?" A pale hand shot out at the little green one.

"Don't listen to her!" the little one retorted. "She's evil!"

"Evil?" the other mocked. "Evil is an invention of the sanctimonious, used to condemn any action they are too weak to do themselves." It them turned to Elphaba, a smile on its face.

"All your life, you've hidden behind rules and what society has planned out for you," it began. "When it condemned, you submitted. When it beckoned, you came. Don't you see? You are squandering away your potential by your blind compliance and obedience to a world that will _never_ love you!"

"What if I don't care?" Elphaba asked.

"Don't lie to yourself! I know you are weak, caring, soft. But I can change that: I can make you truly invincible, so powerful that all of Oz will be throwing themselves at your feet in adulation."

_But, I swear, someday, there'll be..._

"See? You've come so far, and you are _so_ close to breaking free of these chains you have placed upon yourself."

_A celebration throughout Oz..._

"No need to run, no need to hide, you will no longer have to be ashamed of what you are."

_That's all to do, with..._

"All you have to do is embrace...

"_Me._"

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: Nice way to end the chapter, with no clear resolution. Then again, I can't come up with an earth-shaking, life-altering moment for Elphaba that doesn't sound preconceived and unoriginal.)<strong>


	8. A Witch on the Lamb

**(AN: I'm calling the world out on something I think is really silly and stupid: for those who use literature as escapism, why, then, do you want literature to be as boring, depressing and hopeless as real life? I mean, isn't the point of using literature as an escape for it to _escape_ from real life?)  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>A Witch on the Lamb<strong>

Everyone in Oppman's garage ran to where the coughing, retching noises were coming from. It was the first thing in a while that wasn't a screaming baby. This meant at least something good, for Menmam had told them that a purge was a good sign. Naturally, therefore, everyone - Fiyero, Nessa, Glinda with baby Liir in her arms, Evemar Kloxolk, Boq, Oppman and Menman - came scurrying over to see if what they had been wishing for finally came true.

In the room where they had left her, they found Elphaba leaning over the make-shift bed she laid upon, something black dripping from out of the corner of her lips. On the ground beside the makeshift bed was a puddle of the stuff, looming ominously up from the floor.

"Elphie?" Glinda asked sheepishly. The others gazed as the emerald-skinned woman continued discharging the black fluid from out of her mouth, until Nessarose turned away in disgust. Fiyero was the first one to break away from the 'pack' and try to speak with Elphaba directly. He knelt beside her and took up her face in his hands.

"Fae, are you alright?" he asked. "Is it gone?"

There was no immediate answer, for Elphaba's eyes were sealed and she showed no other signs that she understood what he said. Everyone held their breaths, waiting for some kind of sign that it was over, that Elphaba Thropp was cured, and her 'normal' self again.

Her eyes opened and they knew right away that something was wrong. Gone were the lovely, seductive dark brown and the tiny, trailing lines of silver from her eyes. In its place were bright yellow eyes, with miniscule red lines like fire crisscrossing through them.

"Fae?" Fiyero asked. "Are you alright?"

The words that came from Elphaba's lips were her own words, in her own voice. But the tone in which she said them was so shocking that it stayed with them to the end of their days.

"Get off me!" she growled.

Immediately, Fiyero took a step back, removing his hands from her face. She rose up, but did not look at any of them or acknowledge their presence. Instead, she started walking out of the garage.

"Elphie, please," Glinda began. "We were so worried about you. Please, you have to help us. Baby Liir has eaten, he needs his mother!"

She didn't make any acknowledgement of her presence, or even turn her head towards the screaming baby. She walked with determined steps out of Oppman's garage and into the night beyond.

* * *

><p>"I'm terribly sorry," Menman rambled on as he got his things together. "I did the best I could. Oh, of course, that's no excuse. I've failed, I'll admit that. Then what good am I, you say? Well, fear not, I will endeavor to find her. I-I will use everything at my disposal: I won't rest until I've returned her safe and sound!"<p>

The others looked on in shock. Elphaba was gone and their only hope of finding her was gone. Menman continued packing his things up and made his way to the exit of Oppman's garage.

"Wait, uh, Dr. Person...thing?" Glinda interjected. "Please, is there anything you could do for him?" She held up Baby Liir, still cradled in her arms.

"I can give you a tonic," he began. "It will taste awful, make you want to vomit, but you must take it. It will make you able to nurse him as if you were his mother. Not the choicest option, but, in these unique circumstances, it is our only choice."

"Where's Fae...I mean, where's Elphaba gone?" Fiyero asked.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Menman stated. "Your friend Oppman is something of an engineer." Oppman blushed. "Please, young man, they need to know, and you need to stand up for yourself. It's not right that they call you 'Odd', only because they don't understand how your mind works."

"But, I'm just in everyone's way!"

"Not in mine," the healer said. "One day, I promise, your inventions will be of some use before the end." He then turned to the Ozians. "I'm afraid I must depart now. I have other things to attend to: of course, as I have promised, finding your friend will take top priority." This done, he bowed to them all, then made his way out of the garage.

An eerie quiet fell upon the group, the only sound the howl of the wind outside the garage's open door. The night seemed to be mocking them with all of its darkness: out there somewhere, they knew, Elphaba was making her way into the middle of nowhere, but the darkness would not let betray her location. There they stood, looking out into the darkness, wishing that this was all a dream, that minutes later they would wake up and Elphaba would still be there.

"I want Elphie back!" Glinda bemoaned out loud.

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: I've got new ideas, but no drive to continue this story. Not only because nobody reads it, but because it seems <em>Wicked<em> is on its last leg in my world and I'm trying to re-capture the magic. Please, please, _please_, any suggestions and/or ideas are welcome and encouraged!)**


	9. Bigger Problems

**(AN: This story will go down in the history of the _Ozian Adventures_ series [what it is] as a 'middle story', if anyone even gives it the time of day anymore. Well, I'm still here and I've got several plot-bunnies to explicate a little bit more on, as well as setting the stage for the next story, _Witch's Soul_. Yes, I've been promising that for a long while, now it's gonna get published. It's in the same series as this, but, obviously, a cross-over, and will feature only two characters from the _Ozian Adventures_ series. All these others are getting hard to stay on top of!)  
><strong>

**(So bear with me, please.)  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Bigger Problems<strong>

A strange kind of miasma hovered over the group as they sat in the hot, stuffy garage of their mutual acquaintance Oppman. They were now one person short, and baby Liir was not doing any better for her absence. Fiyero never went to sleep, instead pacing the floor all day and night. Boq kept to himself, or sometimes shared whispered words with Evemar Kloxolk. He, on the other hand, also stayed much to himself, sharpening his sword or taking care of his clock-work parts.

The two women were kept quite busy. The tonic Dr. Menmam gave them tasted horrible, but allowed them to nurse Liir. But even that was easier said than done. Neither of them had eaten much in a long while, and the small portions of food that Oppman brought them periodically were hardly enough. As their luck would have it, the uncomfortable task of nursing baby Liir often fell to Nessarose. Though, by reason of their lack of nourishment, both women were weary and the feeding made them weak, Glinda was even weaker than usual and slept most of the day, or laid on her make-shift bed, crying herself to sleep.

Thus they spent the majority of their days here at Meraburg, all the while hoping that, one of these days, or perhaps in the dead of the night, Elphaba would come walking back into their lives and the last few days would have been nothing more than a bad dream. Day after day, with Oppman's garage un-darkened by the sight of her shadow, the painful truth slowly dawned upon them: Elphaba was not coming back.

One day they were once more together, minus Oppman and Elphaba, in a place of the garage that Fiyero and Evemar Kloxolk had cleaned up for this purpose. They sat in a loose circle, with Fiyero in the middle and Boq and Kloxolk on opposite sides. Glinda sat off by herself, and Nessa cradled baby Liir in her arms.

"I never thought I'd find myself in this situation," Fiyero began. "I mean, the last time I was doing something, trying to be the head of more than just attention, I was searching for Elphaba." Glinda's tiny hand raised up from where she sat. "You don't have to raise your hand, Glinda, we're not at Shiz anymore."

"Shouldn't we be searching for her?"

"Normally I agree with you," he replied. "But I don't know where to start. Oppman's told us the people of the village, Meraburg, I guess it's called, don't like outsiders. He's asked around about Elphaba, but not many people have been willing to offer him any information."

"Where does that leave us?" Kloxolk asked.

"I think we should go home," Boq said. "I mean, come on, I'm no adventurer, I get scared going through the Pine Barrens in broad daylight!"

"I agree," Fiyero said. "We've been too long away from home, it's time we go back."

"Are we even sure we can make it back?" Kloxolk asked.

"What do you mean?" Fiyero queried.

"I came here on the back of a Roc, as you recall. I definitely remembered spending a whole night flying over nothing but ocean before we set down on this place. He called it Maaptia, whatever that means."

"Wait, ocean?" Nessa asked. "You've seen the ocean?"

"Of course," Kloxolk replied, as if it were no thing. "Why?"

"Why?" she returned. "Well, nobody in Oz has ever heard of the ocean. Most people don't even believe it exists, especially..." She stopped herself in mid-sentence, knowing of whom she was talking about and how sore the subject of her still was among those here present.

"Pretty much what I'm saying," Kloxolk picked up in the midst of the awkward silence that followed Nessarose's hastily ended sentence. "Is that we have no guarantee that we could find another Roc to take us back across the sea. I'm probably the only one of you who's been to sea."

"Oh," Fiyero interjected. "We've been at sea before."

"Do you know how to sail?" Fiyero made a face similar to his usual expressions of complete bewilderment that were all too familiar in his days at dear old Shiz.

"I don't even think we can swim," Nessa stated. "I sure can't."

Kloxolk sighed, resting his face in the palm of his flesh hand.

"So we have no way of getting back to where we come from," Fiyero said. "Almost no idea where we are." He exclaimed. "We're sure as Oz lost, that's for sure."

"So what good was this meeting anywho?" Glinda sorrowfully asked.

"Come on, we can't just stay here forever," Fiyero interjected. "We have to go somewhere."

"Go where, Fiyero?" she bemoaned. "I'm tired, I'm sick of running here and there, never staying in one place."

"We're all tired, Glinda." Nessa stated.

"Not as much as I am," she retorted, then turned back to Fiyero. "I didn't want to get involved in this adventure, I was just...well, called here. Now, I just wanna go home."

"We'd all love to go home, Glinda," Fiyero replied. "But we can't get home, can we?"

With a defeated huff, Glinda walked out on their little meeting.

"I agree with Glinda!" Boq stated. "I never wanted to get involved in this situation."

"Do you think any of us _wanted_ to be in this situation?" Kloxolk asked. "We should make the best of it."

"And just how do we do that?" Fiyero asked, a little jaded at his 'authority' being usurped.

"Well," Kloxolk began. "If Oppman is our only connection to the outside, maybe he can help us."

"How?" Nessa asked.

"Ask him to buy us maps, ask around. Who knows, we might find passage to the coast, people more open to speaking with us. From there, we can charter a ship back to Nonestica."

"What's 'Nonestica'?" Boq asked.

"It's what outsiders call our world."

"I thought we were called Oz," Nessa queried.

"_Your_ land is called Oz, but Ev is just beyond the Deadly Desert: both of our countries are on the same continent, which is called Nonestica, or Nonestia."

"I like your plan," Boq said. "At least someone makes sense around here."

Fiyero huffed angrily, then slumped back onto the floor, face covered by his palm.

"So," Boq began. "I guess the meeting's adjourned?"

* * *

><p>Glinda spent every night crying herself to sleep. It seemed she didn't have enough tears to bring life to the sorrow, the worry, the fear in her heart. Sorrow because Elphaba was gone, worry for what might happen to her, and fear that something might have already happened to her as she thought thusly.<p>

"I want Elphie back!" she cried to herself, ever since the green woman disappeared.

Her dreams did not get any better either. In them, she relived the most horrible events of her life: Fiyero leaving with Elphaba, that evening at Kiamo Ko when she thought Elphaba was dead, her second visit to Center Munch, when she learned at last how she had destroyed Boq and Nessa, the horrible visions in the Elf-lady's mirror, the pain she felt in that moment when she touched the Stone, the horrors of the siege, the darkness of the Land of Shadow, and all the terrible things that happened in Midgard. In the center of all these things, she saw, was Elphaba Thropp. But what did it mean? Was she the cause of all these terrible things, or was she, in some way, part of the solution?

_Glinda_...

She was in a dark room, the only light coming from a figure before her. Was it Elphie, holding out the broom, urging her to come with her?

_Glinda..._

She was in a forest glade, flooded with moon-light. The choice remained before her, just as it had before: fly to safety, or go forward into darkness and uncertainty.

_Glinda..._

All the while, a voice was calling out to her from the darkness. It was not Elphaba's voice, nor was it Fiyero's voice.

_Glinda..._

There was something familiar about that voice, however...

"Glinda!"

She jumped up from her sleep, her mouth hanging open as she saw the speaker standing at the foot of where she had fallen asleep.

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><p><strong>(AN: Guess what, witches? I'm back! [lol])<strong>

**(A story for _Witch's Soul_ is formulating: yes, what you have heard advertised is finally going to come out! Let me finish this story up in ten chapters, and I'll weave you a tale you might actually enjoy and find interesting.)  
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**(Meanwhile, mystery and questions are to be answered in the coming chapter.)  
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	10. A Tale of Two Witches

**(AN: If you have been reading along since _The Witch's Saga_, you will undoubtedly see explained what I have been leading up to in this chapter. It is quite important, not only for the beginning of _Witch's Soul_, but for what happens [or may happen] _after_ _Witch's Soul__._ I kind of don't want to go on, since this story is starting to lag outside of cross-over heaven, but if I _do_ decide to hand over the reins, I want it to be someone I am confident can carry on the story in an appropriate way: epic fantasy adventure, while keeping the spirit/essence of _Wicked_ and its characters alive [if you think you can do so, just say the word].)  
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><p><strong>A Tale of Two Witches<strong>

It was Glinda.

"Who...what are you?" she asked.

"Don't you know?" the other one returned with a question. "You've forgotten already?"

What Glinda saw before her was something that was very much like herself. The body was the same, the hair, though a brilliant shade of auburn, was still curled as perfectly as her own, even the bubbly voice was similar: it was as though someone had duplicated Glinda Upland through magic, dumped her in a pink version of her bubble dress, complete with a pink, ruby-studded tiara and fake, gossamer wings, then dropped this Glinda-double directly in front of the real Glinda.

"Sorry," the Glinda in her Burgundian peasant woman's dress replied. "I've been sick a lot lately, I don't remember much of anything."

"When she left," the pink Glinda said. "You found that the Grimmerie was still with you. A little patience and a lot of hard work, and you unlocked a certain spell."

The words she spoke brought the memories back into Glinda's mind. She had done just that: that was why Elphaba was so relieved to see her, claiming she had died.

"The spell," she breathed. "But I only split myself in two."

"That's not entirely true," the other Glinda shook her head. "You split yourself into four. One is not, another is lost, and two yet remain alive. You are one, and I am the other."

"Where are you exactly?"

"Home in Oz," the red-haired Glinda said. "That was your plan, after all. Stay in Worms and begin work on your plan, while the rest of us went off where you commanded us to go."

"What is my plan?"

"You never told me," the red-haired Glinda replied. "All you told me was to go back to Oz and continue ruling, just as Elphie had left for you to do: do justice, rule kindly, and make sure the Animals are treated well."

"And are they?"

"They no longer fear for their lives," red-haired Glinda answered. "Is that good?"

The blond Glinda nodded her head, still trying to wrap her mind around this.

"You said I split myself into four?"

"That is correct." the red-haired Glinda nodded.

"What were the others? Where are they now?"

A look of surprise came over red-haired Glinda for a moment, who rubbed her chin pensively, as though she were in deep thought: not a usual pose she struck, Glinda reminded herself. Slowly, the red-haired Glinda began to speak and tell her story.

"I remember when I first came into being," she began. "We were all very weak, you said it was a side effect of the spell. I looked at us, and noticed there were four of us, including me. One was dark-haired with green eyes, and the other looked exactly like you. I recall asking you why you had conjured one that was exactly like you: you told me she was to go with the others, to keep them company and report back everything that happened. Oh, I do apologize for not reporting in sooner. Please don't be offended!"

"I'm not, I'm not," Glinda shook her head.

Red-haired Glinda nodded. "You gave your blue travel dress, the one the Elves made you, to the copy-cat. I and the other were given robes and told our missions secretly. I then made my way back to Oz, and the rest, as they say, is history."

This was all too much for her to take in all at once. She knew she was nowhere near as powerful of a sorceress as Elphaba was: how had she managed to cast such a powerful spell? She had actually split herself into four separate, living entities, all of them Glinda, yet all of them different.

"Wait, you said you knew how to get back to Oz?" Glinda asked.

"Yes," nodded red-haired Glinda. "You see, after my return, I put my mind to studying magic, in hopes that, when I am no longer needed, you will assimilate my power into your own and become stronger."

"Assimiliate? How?"

"Don't you remember?" the red-haired Glinda asked. "You told me in confidence. You said none of the others knew this!"

"Knew what?"

"You told us all that, though we were permitted to call ourselves Glinda, be called Glinda, and carry out all the actions, rights and privileges of Glinda, we were not truly Glinda: only your reflections. After you and I were alone, you told me the rest of the spell: 'To Assume the Reflection.' Once we were no longer needed, you would come for us and touch us, thereby assuming us back into the whole."

Glinda saw that the red-haired version of herself was actually appearing rather sad and sorrowful, as she had not seen herself in quite a long time (then again, there were no mirrors or ways of seeing herself in Oppman's underground garage, so she didn't know if, perchance, she had become as sorrowful now as she now saw in her reflection).

"Let me show you," the red-haired one said, unable to continue. Glinda saw the room dissolve, and then reassemble into something that resembled her apartment in the hall at Worms. There sat herself, just as she had been, with the red-haired duplicate of herself, wrapped in an old cloak, standing before her.

"The spell says," the other blond Glinda said. "That when you won't be needed, I just need to touch you and you'll go back into me."

"Will I die?" the red-haired duplicate asked.

"Die? No!" she assured the duplicate. "Your body will disintegrate, but you will be back in me again. Everything you've experienced, seen, witnessed or gained, will live on in me."

"Will it hurt?"

"I don't know..."

The vision faded, and Glinda found herself back in Oppman's garage, surrounded by tools and equipment, with the red-haired Glinda standing at the foot of her make-shift bed.

It all made sense now. When the other one, the 'copy-cat' Glinda, had been killed in the past, her essence, her memories, her experiences, were transferred back to her, the true Glinda, about the time when she began to grow stronger. All she had to do now was find the others, assimilate them and she would never be this weak again.

"What about Oz?" she asked at last. "You said you found the way back from here."

"It wasn't easy," the red-haired Glinda said. "But I was able to find the spell. If you would like, I will give it to you." Just then, another thought entered Glinda's mind.

"Wait! Do you know anything about Elphie? Do you know where I can find her?"

"I was wondering when you would ask."

"Huh?"

"You see," the red-haired Glinda said. "I have a gift for you, and it concerns Elphie. That is why I sent out my consciousness to find you."

"Consciousness?"

"I am not really here," the red-haired Glinda said. "But what I have to give is real enough." Immediately, there materialized a small black orb that floated in red-haired Glinda's hand.

"This is a scrying crystal," the red-haired Glinda said. "It was made by Quadlings, and imbued with special powers. If you look into this glass, you will see whatever it is your will is most desirous to see."

"Elphie had one like this!" Glinda exclaimed, as the black orb floated down and came to rest at her feet.

"Hers was more powerful than this mere trifle," the red-haired Glinda replied. "I fear it was more powerful than anything of its kind. It is beyond reach now, but Elphie is not. Here, take this first part of your gift as use it well."

"Wait, first part?"

"I have one more gift to give you."

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><p><strong>(AN: Ten chapters is my minimum for regular, non-short story, non-one shot, fan-fics on here. I have reached that mark, and on this cliff-hanging note, I shall seal the book of <em>Ozian Adventures: The Land<em> until such time as our green-skinned anti-heroine stops feeling sorry for herself.)**

**(_Witch's Soul_ coming soon: [this is for real, now])  
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**(Any ideas? Thoughts? Fears? Concerns? Comments? Questions? Requests? Suggestions for _Witch's Soul_? Takers for continuing their version of _Ozian Adventures_? All are welcomed: just fill out the review below, please.)  
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